On monetized accounts (which PBS is) YT pays out creators based on advertising revenue. The way they calculate that is a complex, proprietary algorithm, but essentially it’s based on view count and retention, and skip rate. So subscribing and liking doesn’t actually directly help to fund the channel, HOWEVER more subs and likes usually translates to your videos getting pushed to more and more people (based on a totally different, complex proprietary algorithm), which usually leads to more views, and therefore more ad revenue.
I’m pretty sure us ad-blocking users are still technically contributing to the ad revenue, but over time it can affect the results that advertisers are seeing, and therefore could effect the amount of money they are willing to spend on advertising in the niche or demographic that your favorite creators fall into.
Does that all make sense?
I know :/